Nate Szczerbinski, 34, of Grosse Pointe Park awaits his Monday surgery to repair an eye socket damaged when he was beaten after a car crash Saturday in Detroit. / Family photo

Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

A 34-year-old Grosse Pointe Park man is undergoing surgery today after claiming he was severely beaten Saturday on Detroit’s east side, moments after exiting his vehicle at the scene of a crash, according to police.

Nate Szczerbinski told police he’d been driving the wrong direction on one-way Vernor Highway and, as he went to turn around, a burgundy van hit him nearly head-on. He got out to check on everyone.

“They were like, ‘Did you see what the (expletive) you did?’ ” Szczerbinski said. “And then they proceeded to hit me. All three of them were just hitting me and kicking me, spitting on me and calling me ‘white (expletive).’ ”

Szczerbinski, who is white, said the three men were black. He didn’t fight back, he said, and was afraid to give the full story to police until he reached the hospital.

Detroit police spokesman Adam Madera said Szczerbinski, after he was in the hospital, told police that the swelling to his face was from a beating, not the crash.

Police then went to the home of the other driver, 20, and arrested him on an assault charge, Madera said. Officers are seeking two other men suspected of involvement, and descriptions aren’t immediately available. Police said it’s up to prosecutors to decide whether the allegations involve ethnic intimidation.

Szczerbinksi remained in St. John Hospital in Detroit today, and was scheduled to have surgery to repair his left eye socket that was partly shattered from a punch from an assailant, he said.

Szczerbinski admitted to police that he was driving the wrong way shortly before the crash at Chalmers Street, and he went to turn around when the collision occurred about 4:15 p.m. Saturday, Madera said.

The beating stretched as long as 20 minutes, Szczerbinski said, as they would pause to taunt him with racial slurs before kicking and hitting him in the head and ribs.

“They were just saying I was lucky that they didn’t kill me, even though after that they kept saying how they wanted to kill me,” he said, adding that he didn’t fight back. “I figured it was best just to take it. There was three of them.”

Szczerbinski said that before the crash, he’d had one beer at Texas Bar and Grill on Kercheval Avenue, a few blocks away, and was heading home.

He works as a landscaper for Howell and Sons Landscaping, and recently became a father. His girlfriend, Sarah Hines, said the Pontiac Grand Am he was driving is the family’s only vehicle.

“We just can’t wait to see these guys in court,” Hines said.

People interested in helping with Szczerbinski’s medical bills or support for his family can visit his Giveforward page.

Several high-profile cases in metro Detroit the past few months have involved assault allegations between one man and multiple assailants.

Four men were charged in that attack and are to go on trial in August. A 16-year-old was charged with assault and ethnic intimidation, and his case goes to trial June 23.

Szczerbinski said he knew about the Utash beating but said it didn’t make him any more wary of stopping at a crash scene in Detroit.

“I just wanted to make sure that these people were OK,” he said. But now he says he’d advise anyone in a crash to wait in their vehicle until authorities arrive.

In another case shortly after Utash was beaten, a 25-year-old Army veteran from Livonia told police and media that he was the victim of a savage beating by three men outside a 7-Eleven store in Westland. Adam Wagner generated widespread attention and sympathy from a public outraged over the assault, after he claimed he tried to stop the men from harassing a female clerk.

But Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said that Wagner was actually the aggressor, and she didn’t press charges against the three men.